Community board nixes educator’s idea to build science lab on Bay Ridge pier
A retired educator’s dream to get a marine science lab built on the Bay Ridge waterfront suffered a major setback on Monday when the local community board refused to add the proposed project to its list of city capital budget priorities.
As a result, the Denyse Wharf marine lab proposal that has long been sought by Thomas Greene could be dead in the water.
Greene, a retired assistant principal who taught for many years at Fort Hamilton High School in Bay Ridge, has been trying for decades to convince the New York City Department of Education (DOE) to build a lab on Denyse Wharf, a pre-Revolutionary War pier at the foot of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Greene, who said the lab would allow students to study marine and plant life, added that the support of Community Board 10 (Bay Ridge-Dyker Heights) is crucial to his efforts.
“This project is on the back burner for DOE; that’s the problem,” Greene told the community board at its budget hearing on Oct. 20. Greene said support from the community board might jump-start the project because it would show the DOE that the project has widespread support in Bay Ridge. Two local elected officials, state Sen. Marty Golden and Councilmember Vincent Gentile, have both stated their support for the lab.